Venture into some of the most haunted places in Australia

FROM the creepy Princess Theatre in Melbourne to spine-chilling Devils Pool in Queensland and the Monte Cristo Homestead in country NSW, these are the creepiest places in Australia. Venture if you dare.

Fred Baker was not getting the attention he thought he deserved so he changed his name to the more exotic Federici but died on stage before his moment in the limelight was done.Source:Supplied

But in March 1888, while completing a show at the Princess Theatre, just has Federici hits a high note while descending into the stage on a mechanical platform, he has a massive heart attack and dies.

A stage hand reportedly witnesses the incident and is there for Federici’s final moments.

But, as Lantern Ghost Tours guide Ross Daniels tells, the singer’s ego is bigger than his call to the afterlife.

When other actors later find out about Federici’s abrupt passing, they swear that Federici had been on stage with them after the final curtain to bask in applause — moments after he collapsed and died.

Even though Federici was said to have died while descending through the floor of the stage he was ‘seen’ on stage receiving a standing ovation straight after.Source:Herald Sun

Theatre goers gather out on Spring St during the premiere of Phantom of the Opera.Source:Herald Sun

Mr Daniels says the story was unusual because the haunting is said to have begun almost immediately after death.

“The ghost returned immediately afterwards and is said to have been given a standing ovation,” he says.

“Since then it’s rumoured that his ghost haunts the theatre.

“The cafe adjacent to the theatre, Frederici’s, is actually named after him, which not many people know.”

Monte Cristo Homestead in Junee, New South Wales

Monte Cristo Homestead at Junee in southern NSW claims to be Australia's most haunted house.Source:Supplied

Australia’s most haunted house is the Monte Cristo Homestead in Junee. Ghosts of its original owner Christopher William Crawley and his family are believed to haunt the home.

A caretaker was murdered in the home in 1961, a mentally disabled boy was kept in the homestead’s cottage for many years, a boy died falling down the stairs, a maid fell from a balcony and a stable boy died from injuries after a fire. Many of the ghosts who appear in the residence are believed to be spirits of these people who died there and Mrs Crawley herself.

The owner of the house, Olive Ryan, has lived there since 1963 and says she has felt a hand on her shoulder.

“I’ve had my name called when I’ve been here by myself. It’s nothing to hear footsteps on the balcony and you go out and there’s no one there,” she said.

“It’s just something that we accept,” says Olive’s son Lawrence, who grew up in Monte Cristo. “It’s a little bit spooky some days, but other days it’s just fine.”

“All my sisters have seen spirits here at the house, and they don’t have much to do with the house they were actually scared away from it.”

From the day Olive and her now-deceased husband arrived at the house, they knew something was unusual.

The house was completely lit up, despite having no electricity connected.

“By the time we got up here every light went out,” Olive said.

The house is now occupied by Olive, Lawrence, and Lawrence’s wife, Sophia, who’s lived there for four years, but claims a much longer connection with the house.

“I’ve had a past life here,” Sophia says. “I’ve learnt that I was one of the maids here.”

She’s felt the presence of some of the maids here, along with the mansion’s original owners, Christopher and Elizabeth Crawley, who lived there from when Christopher built the house in 1884 until their deaths in 1910 and 1933 respectively.

“Mrs Crawley is keeping a close eye on what’s going on,” adds Sophia.

“Unfortunately there were a few accidents that happened. Everything from a child being dropped down the staircase by the nanny … to a maid that so-called committed suicide off the balcony who was pregnant to Mr Crawley,” Lawrence told The Project last year.

Ghost hunters investigated it recently and heard creepy voices saying creepy things like “Those are chains” and “It’s not cold”.

By night the halls and rooms of the centre have a more creepy feel and voices can be heard and hair pulled.Source:Flickr

One of the ghosts that inhabit the building is said to be attracted particularly to redheads.

Known as The Lady in Black the woman was placed in the asylum in the 1800s after failing to deal with the abduction and disappearance of her red-headed daughter.

After searching for the girl in the asylum but failing to find her the woman ended up jumping out one of the windows and killing herself.

Now when red-headed people visit the arts centre they may feel their hair being pulled as the ghost continues her search for her daughter.

Devil’s Pool near Babinda, Queensland

Devils Pool at the Babinda Boulders where Royal Australian Navy officer, Sub-Lieutenant James Bennett, 23, became the pool's latest statistic. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied

Aboriginal legend has it that a young woman jumped into the Devil’s Pool, better known as Babinda Boulders, after being torn from her lover.

Rather than never experience true love again Oolana leapt to her death in the pool and is said to still be searching for her true love Dyga today and still luring young men to their deaths in the pool.

Some claim to have photographed the ghost in the waters others say there is a more pragmatic reason for the 16 deaths of young men there in the past 50 years.

Tasmanian James Bennett, 23, and three friends had walked beyond the safety rails to sit in the churning water of the highly oxygenated pool locals call Washing Machine.

Mr Bennett was swimming in calmer water when all of a sudden one of his friends saw him get pulled backwards, as if by an invisible hand, towards white water at the downstream end of the pool. His friend told Coroner Kevin Priestly in 2010 that Mr Bennett reached up to grab a branch which snapped. Moments later his head went under the water.

Seventeen people have lost their lives at the picturesque tourist spot since 1959, a majority of them all young, single men who some say were lured to their deaths by a ghost.Source:Supplied

His friend could see him struggling under the churning white water. Only the tips of his fingers from an extended hand protruded just above the surface. His friend moved to a closer position and extended his leg so Mr Bennett might have something to hold on to, but no contact was made.

Mr Bennett struggled once or twice and then disappeared.

That was the last time he was seen until his body floated out of the notorious stretch of water at The Boulders three days later on December 2.

The water, even when low, still has enough force to suck people, ­especially children, into the tunnels of rock and hold them under.

A photo posted by #exploreTNQ (@tropicalnorthqueensland) on Jul 28, 2016 at 12:56am PDT

Babinda SES member Dulcie Schnitzerling talks about the bravery of the divers who search for bodies. They are attached to land by the rope, but they are entering a dangerous world where they themselves could be trapped by fast water and pinned against a rock under the water.

“They find the bodies jammed under logs or rocks. Sometimes the bodies are spinning around in the white water,” Ms Schnitzerling said.

“When they go into the Chute they just keep going around like they are in a washing machine.”

Studley Park House, New South Wales

Studley Park house, Camden, NSW.Source:News Limited

Studley Park House was built by Narellan grazier William Payne in 1889 for his new bride but was forced to sell it after running up too much debt.

On October 15, 1909, in the grounds of the then Camden Grammar School, 14-year-old Ray Blackstone drowned in the dam after failed rescue attempts by his school mates, ancestry.com.au tells us.

Studley Park house, Camden, NSW.Source:News Limited

Ray Blackstone’s body was then stored in the cool, dark cellar of the school until his burial.

Three decades later, while living in the transformed school house, 13-year-old Noel William Gregory — son of Twentieth Century Fox sales manager Arthur Adolphus Gregory, died from appendicitis.

Noel’s body was believed to have been kept in the theatrette until his burial.

It’s believed that the spirits of both boys play together and remain in the house as a constant reminder of their tragic lives.

Since then the house has been bought and sold on numerous occasions. In 1940 it was transferred to the Army and became the headquarters of the eastern command training school.

The school conducted training in tactical instruction, the use of the vickers machine gun and driver training for the Matilda tank.

Studley Park House has a lot of history and not all of it good.Source:Supplied

Most recently the property has been acquired by Camden Golf Club which began renovating the property.

During works to replace parts fo the roof and make the property waterproof workers discovered a hangman’s noose dangling from the home’s steeple.

Boggo Road Jail in Brisbane, Queensland

Aerial photograph of Boggo Road Jail which is believed to be haunted by the spirit of the last man to be hanged there Ernest Austin.Source:News Limited

Ernest Austin, also known as Ernest Johnson, was the last of 42 inmates hanged at Queensland’s notorious Boggo Road Gaol.

He was hanged for the brutal murder of 11-year-old Ivy Alexandra Mitchell.

But it’s Austin’s harrowing supernatural presence — not his horrific crime — that has cemented his name into prison folklore.

New prisoners were often told the story about Austin to scare them. Picture: Bill WhalleySource:News Limited

It is said that after the burly 23-year-old dropped through the gallows trapdoors in September 1913, fellow inmates of A Wing, the site of Austin’s execution, were tormented by paranormal experiences.

Austin’s ghost would materialise through the concrete walls, pass through the jail’s dilapidated corridors and throttle prisoners in their cells at the Dutton Park penitentiary, just 4km south of Brisbane’s CBD.

Soon Austin’s legacy grew, as veteran prisoners and guards warned new inmates of the murderer’s stalking apparition, and his mission to harvest souls for the devil.

They said Austin’s ghost struck a pact with Satan to meet a quota of souls to avoid his own fiery doom in hell.

Boggo Rd was a place of execution until 1913, and held some of Australia’s most dangerous men and women including the Whiskey Au-Go-Go firebombers James Finch and Andrew Stuart, and the only woman hanged in Queensland, Ellen Thomson.

Given its long history of rooftop riots, executions and fatal overcrowding, Boggo understandably has a ghostly folklore surrounding it.

Old Adelaide Gaol, South Australia

The Old Adelaide Gaol may be empty now but there are more than just memories behind the building facade. Picture: Watkinson TriciaSource:News Corp Australia

Located in the northwestern corner of the Adelaide Parklands, the Old Adelaide Gaol, built in 1841 and decommissioned in 1988, is said to be haunted.

It has stark, small cells, some with graffiti on the walls — a lasting reminder of the men who lived in these cramped conditions. There’s barbed wire. A hanging tower and also trap door. Burial sites for the executed. And metal staircases.

Alison Oborn is a paranormal researcher with Paranormal Field Investigators and says the jail is definitely haunted.

“We’ve just had so much happen that we couldn’t rationalise or explain, which is why — eight years after first starting investigations we’re still there,” Oborn says of her PFI investigations.

The walls can’t talk but neither can they stop the former residents from moving about the complex.Source:News Limited

One of the old remand cells in the Old Adelaide Gaol.Source:News Limited

The unexplainable happenings she talks of include video footage of a heavy, steel door opening and closing on its own, lights flashing inside electricity-free cells and noises of pool balls being played in the dead of night.

“I will always try and find rational explanations to most things,” Oborn says. “But the one I cannot rationalise is when I was taking a tour for two documentary filmmakers. We were in the `new’ building, but it was still built in the 1870s and there is an old metal staircase there where I stand and tell the stories.

“I’d only just started the story about the apparition of a guard that is seen in here, and as I was talking about that, footsteps started on the top of the gangtry and we could literally hear the click of the heel and squeak of the leather boots and it came right to the top of the stairs and I’m going: ‘Whoo, that’s great’.

The hanging tower at the jail.Source:News Limited

Inside the hanging tower complete with trapdoor and beam for the noose.Source:News Limited

“Then it came down the stairs. The two filmmakers just stepped aside to let it through, because it felt like an authoritative figure was coming through and they needed to step aside.

“If you’ve ever rubbed a balloon against your arm and it’s made all your hairs stand up on end and it tingles, that was what it felt like when it went by; it was just like a static breeze going by.”

Adelaide Arcade, South Australia

The Adelaide Arcade building is said to be haunted by the ghost of caretaker Francis Cluney who died in the most gruesome way.Source:Supplied

IT’S the oldest shopping arcade in Australia with a deadly past and at least one resident ghost.

Caretaker Francis Cluney was investigating a flickering light when he fell into an electrical generator and died in the most gruesome way.

The father-of-five’s mangled body was found a short time later and many of the arcade’s businesses are convinced he still walks among them and watches over them.

Ghost who walks Adelaide Arcade0:24

Security cameras in the Adelaide Arcade have captured images of the ghost of Francis.

October 29th 2013

6 years ago

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According to centre management marketing consultant Sharon Leaney, “friendly Francis” is most active when works are taking place.

And some say he’s not alone.

Despite his gory death way back in 1887, Ms Leaney said many traders still report feeling his presence and had come to accept him like part of the furniture.

She said traders and shoppers at the iconic arcade, built in 1885, didn’t seem to be put off by the ghostly presence.